


For the Ones Who Sleep There Still

by DreamingAmethystDragons



Category: Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic
Genre: And I Must Scream, Bad Ending, Canon Divergence, Drabble, Heavy Angst, Implied Relationships, M/M, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-26
Updated: 2016-11-26
Packaged: 2018-09-02 09:21:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8661976
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamingAmethystDragons/pseuds/DreamingAmethystDragons
Summary: Sinbad had sworn: No more sacrifices.  This is not how victory should be bought.





	

The culmination of all Sinbad's plots and plans had gone horribly, terribly wrong.

Sin stumbles through the shattered room, muffling a cough from the thick, noxious smoke that clouded the room.   There's hardly a safe space to step, and his bloodied feet make it none the safer; his fingertips tingle in the remembrance of the energy crackling at his whim scant minutes before.  Honestly, that the building still stands was likely a miracle; when he'd gone after that scheming, double-crossing body-snatcher they'd punched some substantial holes in the landscape below them.

Well, buildings, structures.... they could be replaced, couldn't they?  As long as the will remained to the people, they would.  But the people...

He crunches around a pillar, pausing to spit out a gobbet of blood.

It wasn't supposed to have gone like this.  Take on the darkness and damn the rest; become a hero and those you  love may yet live, no matter what happens to yourself.  That had been what he'd decided, after watching countless comrades fall.  No one else, but him.  No one else to fall but him.  No one else to fail.

The haze has cleared enough for him to see the far end of the room, and when he sees the jagged outline before him his legs buckle. 

How he comes to be on his knees before the stone, he's not sure (he doesn't remember the last few seconds, crossing the room, was aware of nothing but his ragged breath and the stinging wounds scattered across his body)  but here he is, and there it is.  The stone - crystal, clear quartz or perhaps even diamond, his head is spinning far too much to tell - is cool beneath his fingers, gritty like the tang of salt left on the skin after sailing long weeks on end.  It's a massive structure, rising geode-like out of the crumbled  half-shell of the building, spires of crystal reaching many feet above his head.  Towards his right he sees a darkness contained within but _he doesn't look_ , can't look after what that woman had done.

Instead he looks into the space in front of him.

Looks, and feels a half-contained keen rise up in his throat. 

_Ja'far._

His advisor is there, mere feet in front of him.  Sinbad's hands are flat on the crystal, pushing but what if fracturing the crystal cracks the visage in front of him?  Ja'far's face, it's...

It's far too peaceful, too serene.  Like that little smile when Sinbad would greet him at the start of a new day, or when he'd first gifted him with that red gemstone -

He's frozen, mid-crouch, one hand outstretched, fingers on the other hand curling over his chest.  But it's too still, like looking into a mirror, like looking into a void -

_Live, Sinbad.  Take back the crowd_.

_No more_ , Sinbad had told himself.  _No more failure, anything for a future_.

He remembers this morning, waking up, a warm hand interlinked in his own, soft grey eyes troubled enough to spell worry, but warm enough to whisper love - but no, he can't reach Ja'far, he can't _hear him, can't -_

And Sinbad screams.

**Author's Note:**

> Cross-posted on tumblr. Just a quick drabble to vent about the latest going-ons in canon.  
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
